minuet

minuet

(mĭnyo͞oĕt`), French dance, originally from Poitou, introduced at the court of Louis XIV in 1650. It became popular during the 17th and 18th cent. In 3–4 meter and moderate tempo, the minuet was performed by open couples who made graceful and precise glides and steps. The minuet left a refined but definite imprint on music; it is found in the operatic sinfonias of Alessandro Scarlatti and appears frequently as a movement in the symphonies and sonatas of Haydn and Mozart.

Minuet

a French dance, which developed from a folk dance from the province of Poitou. The minuet became a courtly dance in the second half of the 17th century and then spread throughout Europe as a ballroom dance (in Russia, it was introduced by Peter I). It is marked by smooth, majestic movements, consisting primarily of bows and curtsies. The dance is in 3/4 time. In the 18th century the minuet acquired variations: the tempo was quickened, movements became more complicated, and the dance took on affected features.

Early examples of minuets appear in J. B. Lully’s ballets for operas, F. Couperin’s clavier music, G. F. Handel’s overtures to oratorios, and Handel’s and J. S. Bach’s orchestral and instrumental suites. Mozart gave the minuet exuberance and vitality. Gradually it was transformed into the scherzo (for example, in works by Beethoven). The minuet is rarely encountered in works from the late 19th century and early 20th (Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev).

S. P. PANKRATOV

minuet

1. a stately court dance of the 17th and 18th centuries in triple time

2. a piece of music composed for or in the rhythm of this dance, sometimes as a movement in a suite, sonata, or symphony

A selection of pieces, such as those mentioned above in the student's repertory, will take him or her smoothly from an early-intermediate level to the more demanding technique of the familiar two-part Minuets found in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach.

While we can never know to what extent she was conscious of or deliberate in her use of musical form as an organizing principle in her writing, we can see the influence of the minuet in Pride and Prejudice.

Jusczyk of the State University of New York at Buffalo have found that by the age of 4 1/2 months, babies listen longer to Mozart minuets that have short pauses inserted between phrases, which musicians treat as "natural" segments of the musical flow, than to the same minuets with pauses placed in the middle of phrases.

As to the Mozart, sandwiched between, Salonen put all technical refinements and physical properties in place - with contours that showed the highs, the lows, the vehement, the soft-spoken, the pompous marches, the gentle minuets.

Some piano teachers whose students are artistically playing literature, such as one of the Bach Minuets in G, Schumann The Happy Farmer and Beethoven Ecossaise in G Major, may next assign the students Clementi sonatinas such as Sonatina in C Major, Op.

But he'll have to wait a couple of minuets Saturday night though to pick up his bike -- until Boston Harley-Davidson/Buell president John Atwood, who donated the bike, shows it off with a quick spin around the ice on specially studded tires for the occasion.

Sonja Gerlach has edited the volume of divertimentos in five or more parts for both strings and winds, while Gunter Thomas has prepared the edition of minuets and German dauces scored for orchestra, keyboard arrangements of dances, sketches, two minuets attributed to Haydn, marches for wind instruments, the "Marche Regimento de Marshall" of uncertain authenticity, and marches arranged for orchestra or keyboard.

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